Google XML Feed, Schema and product availability

Question

Regarding product availability, there's that little something I don't quite understand.

We have an online store with a few thousand products. Some of those products we don't have "in stock" for proper say, as we have a few local distributors where we can place an order, we receive the stock ~2-7 days later then we ship to the customer.

According to Google product data specifications, my listing should be considered "out of stock", right? So I should use these for the XML feed and the product page;

Google : "out of stock"
Schema : "OutOfStock"

The thing is "out of stock" shows an "Ad not ready to serve" in Google Ads console.

Would it be bad, considered malpractice or harm my ad placement if I would use the "preorder" status instead of "out of stock" status for these products?

Google : "preorder"
Schema : "PreSale"

In my brain, "out of stock" is something you try to stay away from when you run an online store. No?

Answer 1

That's an interesting one. The guidelines I found were here:

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324448?hl=en

Set availability to out of stock when your product is temporarily unavailable in the target country. If we find that a product is "out of stock" on your landing page, but in stock in your product data, we'll disapprove the product. The reason for the disapproval is to prevent you from paying for clicks to your product when you're not actually able to sell it. Instead of getting disapproved or confusing potential customers, let us know that a product has gone out of stock so we can stop ads from showing until you're able to sell the product again.

I'd say you can use 'in stock' if you know it is available and will get delivered promptly.

Many online stores drop ship, so technically they never have the product in stock.

I think the idea is that you use 'in stock' if the product is currently available for sale. If for some reason you know there will be a delay in getting the product, then it's out of stock.

Answer 2

this question has been answered here: Correct value for ItemAvailability in structured data vs. google shopping feed

Yes, you should not use "out of stock" because otherwise, Google Ads will not serve your ads. You can use "in stock" to indicate that people can visit the product page and buy the product, or "preorder" if you still give them availability to buy but they have to wait longer for the product. In both cases, Google will show your ads.